Insanity ... Part I

Everyone knows what the definition of insanity is, right? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. This is something that I think we are guilty of in our Baptist churches. Let me explain myself.

In years gone by we had the power of God in our baptist churches. The people went to church and the glory fell. A revival meeting was a revival in the true sense of the word, people's lives were forever changed. Bars went out of business. Businesses shut down for the meeting, and a three night meeting was unheard of. Churches were growing in size, not shrinking in size. Their young people were not just in church, but active in church. They were excited about living their lives for God. Young men wanted to be called to preach, to go the mission field. The young ladies wanted to be preachers wives, and raise their children for the glory of God.

But what about today, what do we have today? Our revivals are revivals in name only. No one is changed, no one surrenders their life to God, half the people don't even show up. Yes the preaching is Doctrinally sound. It informs us and perhaps even stirs us, and we "Feel" like we have been renewed. Sad to say that our "Renewal" quickly wears off, and within a week or two we are back to our old routine.

Today we have more programs for our young people than you can shake a stick at! We have children's church, Awana, Kings Kids, church baseball, volleyball, basketball, and football teams. Hot dog Sunday, pizza Sunday, ice-cream Sunday...Sunday. And our youth today are leaving the church faster than rats off of a sinking ship.

So where does the insanity come in?

The last revival didn't work, so lets have another meeting. How do we prepare for this one, the same way we prepared for the last one. No prayer, no fasting, no weeping, not really wanting to go, dragging in late and can't wait to get out because we tivo'd our favorite TV MA rated show.

We can't keep youth in our churches, the ball teams aren't working, the clubs aren't working, the ice-cream Sunday... Sunday's aren't working. So what do we do? Add more ball teams, more clubs, more ice-cream.... you get the point! We do more of the same wishing so hard that it will work.

So what works? in part II we will take a look, and try to find that answer.

The Great Pretenders

Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
II Timothy 3:5

Every time that I've heard this verse preached on, it's always used to refer to those that are hirelings. Those that use "Religion" as a means of financial gain. It's used to refer to the ecumenical movement, to the charismatics that work off of people's emotions rather than the spirit of God, to those that are "Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" Matthew 15:9. And certainly those can be applied, but when I read this verse I see us, Independent Fundamental Baptist. Why do I say that? We are a form, a shell of what we used to be.

There was a time when men, preachers and laymen alike, had a close personal relationship with Christ. They could do more than just talk about the power of God, they experienced it. They knew what it was to spend great amounts of time with God in prayer, meditation, and study. Men like Johnathan Edwards who would sometimes spend 18 hours a day in prayer and study, who preached the message "Sinners in the hands of an angry God". People clung to the pews and pillars of the church afraid that the ground would open beneath them they cried out

"IS THERE NO WAY OF ESCAPE"!

What about men like Charles Finney who was preaching a revival in a port town. A sea captain testified that conviction broke out among the passengers as the ship neared the town where Finney was preaching.

These are just two examples of the power of God that history is filled with. Why don't we see that manifested power today like they did in years gone by? A better question might be, why don't we care? Most people are content to sit back and talk about the "Good ol' days" with no concern about our present spiritual condition. We go to church, we sing, we pray and preach, then leave church Sunday night to go back to our worldly lifestyles that we live thru the week, there is no conviction in our services, no one gets saved, no one is changed, no one rededicates, no one surrenders their life to the service of the Lord (and I'm not only talking about surrendering to preach), and we talk about what a wonderful service that we had, and we pretend that "the spirit was there"! When in fact, we know little about the spirit that the old time preachers knew.

Why is this, did they have some kind of special power with God that was exclusive only to them? Is God a respecter of persons, giving to them a special relationship with Him that we have no access to? God is no respecter of men, we can have the same power that they had, but if we want it we have to pay the same price they paid. Why, because God is no respecter of men.

I don't want to just read about the power of God, Revival, I want to see it! I was chatting with a preacher on facebook last night, he told me of a great quote by Dr. James Stewart, "The church has been sub-normal for so long, that if we ever got normal, the world would think we were abnormal".

I'm tired of pretending, I want to see the power of God in our churches again.

What more could He do?

Just got done listening to a message from oldpathsermons.com, the text was Isaiah chapter 5. The message deals with some things that have been on my heart and mind lately.

Isaiah 5
1 ¶ Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:
2 And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

These verses talk about how a vineyard was planted, how great care was taken to make sure the vineyard would have every opportunity to produce. The verse talks about how the vineyard was fenced, it was protected from intruders and wild animals that might come in and harm the vineyard. It talks about how the stones were gathered out, about the tower that was built in the midst of it, and how he placed a winepress in the vineyard.
What is the purpose of the winepress? So wine could be made when the vines have produced their fruit. This vineyard was not planted simply for show, for people to walk by and say, "what a beautiful vineyard". This vineyard was expected to produced fruit so the owner would have something to show for his hard work of building, working, and caring for this vineyard. But verse two tells us that when it should have brought forth grapes, it brought forth wild grapes. Grapes that were good for no use at all.
We know from John chapter 15 that God is the husbandman, Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. We are to bare fruit for the masters work. I'm afraid, however, that just like Isaiah chapter 5 when God has expected to reap grapes from our lives we have given Him nothing but wild grapes.

4 What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?

So the question is, what more could he do? What more could the Lord do for us to get us to produce fruit for His glory? We live in the greatest country on earth, we live without threat of persecution. We have beautiful church buildings, but we do not have the power of God in our hearts, and homes, and at the house of God. We have allowed this world to consume our lives and anything that has any resemblance to God is chocked out.
What happened to Christians living separated from this world. Not because it's popular, not because the preacher preaches it, and not even because the bible say so, but because we want to please HIM. Why do we have to have fifteen verses on something before we are willing to give it up for the Lord? Why can't we say, "Lord, I don't know if this is wrong or not, but there's so much controversy surrounding it that I'm going to give it up because I want to please you". What more does the Lord have to do for us to get us to serve Him? What's it going to take in your life and mine for us to sell out to God?
What more could He do?

A Thirsty Soul

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
Psalms 42:1

Sad that too many of us cannot identify with this passage of scripture. Most professing "Christians" are too busy chasing after the things of the world to be preoccupied with Jesus. How we rob ourselves of the blessings, fellowship, and power with God when we chase after the things of this world.

What is the purpose of your life, what do you live for? What consumes your thoughts? Is it money, a better position at work, a better education, a new car, house, boat, flat screen television? What drives you from day to day? I know that we have to work to live and provide for our families, but we have gotten to the point where our job and our possession's are what we live for. I know very, very few people who view their jobs as simply a means to live while they serve God. Most church people view service for Christ as something they do every once in a while to soothe their conscience while they live for the temporal pleasures of this life.
Oh we talk a great talk, we know all the word to "oh how I love Jesus", but we don't know the true meaning. How many times in our lives when we come to a decision between taking the will of God by faith, and choosing the easy path, do we choose the latter.

We are faithful to church, read our bibles, even witness occasionally, but do our hearts really long after Him. Is He truly our hearts desire? I don't believe that there are many of us that can say He is. We need to reach the point in our lives where He is our reason for living, where we hunger and thirst for God and His word.

Spiritual Autism 3

In Part 1 and 2 we looked at several things concerning Spiritual Autism. We look at the cause of autism, we looked at the comparison of autism, how the physical compares to the spiritual. We looked at the conditions of autism, how it affects our Dialog, or Diet, and our Development. But what is the cure for autism, how do we get out of this condition of being spiritually autistic?

Concerning physical autism, it’s not a simple answer. The first thing that we have to do is identify the problem areas. It’s been over two years now since Jennifer and I have know that Tyler is autistic, but we still don’t know exactly what is wrong with him. It may be a yeast build up; it may be Mercury or other heavy metals that are built up in his body. He may have food allergies that we are currently unaware of. He is on a waiting list to see a D.A.N. doctor, (Defeat Autism Now). The wait can be very long, and the visits very expensive.

Tyler’s method of treatment will vary based on his particular needs. Spiritual autism, however, is a little easier to treat. Identifying the problem area is still the first step. What area of our lives have we let slip. Have we just grown cold on the Lord, have we stopped praying, stopped reading our bibles? Have we let some of the sins of the past life slip back into our lives, maybe it’s the wrong kind of music, or watching ungodliness on T.V. We have to identify the area that has caused our lives to become autistic spiritually.
Then, we have to get those things out of our lives that are hindering our walk with God. And pray for others that they don’t fall into this condition of being spiritually autistic.

In part 1 I told you about Tyler’s pediatrician, and how she just could not understand our concerns about autism, she insisted that everything was fine. This lost world that has never come to Christ, that has never experienced salvation, that has never experienced a work of grace in their hearts. They can’t understand our concerns over our brother’s and sister’s in Christ that have fallen into sin. They think that our concerns for them are unwarranted, that they are perfectly normal. There is nothing “normal” about a Child of God living a life of sin. God help us to keep the sin out of our lives, to keep an open line of communication with our heavenly father, and to not develop this condition of being Spiritually Autistic.

Spiritual Autism Part 2

In part 1 I told you about Tyler and his condition of autism. We made the comparison between physical autism and spiritual autism, and how when we have allowed sin in our lives we become spiritually autistic. But what are the characteristics of autism? How does autism affect an individual? Autism affects every child differently, each autistic child has their own unique problems, but there are certain areas where they share common difficulties.

First of all, autism hinders a person’s Dialog. Tyler is four and a half years old, his speech is limited and until about six months ago he basically did not talk at all. We thank the Lord for the progress that we are seeing with him, his speech seems to be improving weekly, but he still has a long way to go. It is heart breaking to have a child that, because of their condition, you cannot communicate with.
It is also heart breaking to our heavenly Father when, because of sin in our lives, our line of communication is broken. Psalms 66:18 says that if we regard iniquity in our hearts, the Lord will not hear us. How many times have we let sin come into our lives and break that fellowship with God? When we do we are showing signs of spiritual autism.

Not only does autism hinder our Dialog, but it hinders our Diet. For half of Tyler’s life he has been on a wheat free diet. He can have nothing with gluten or casein. His body cannot process those foods. What did the apostle Paul say to the saints in Corinth? Because of their carnality he had to give them the milk of the word and not the meat (I Corinthians 3:1-3). As long as we harbor sin in our lives, we will not get the proper nourishment that we need from the word of God. We simply will not be able to handle the “meat of the word”.

Lastly, when we become spiritually autistic, when we give in to the flesh and let sin in our lives, it hinders our Development. Because of Tyler’s condition of autism, he cannot develop properly. Jennifer and I cannot train him like we can train Wesley and Riley because of our inability to communicate with him. We are commanded in the scriptures to grow in grace (2 Peter 3:18), to study to shew ourselves approved (2 Timothy 2:15), and to press toward the mark (Philippians 3:14). But we cannot follow these commands from scripture, we cannot develop in our spiritual lives while harboring sin in our lives.

Spiritual Autism

For those of you that don’t know him, this is Tyler. A few months before Tyler’s second birthday Jennifer and I became concerned about him. He was not talking yet, and he would not make eye contact with anyone. Jennifer and I were concerned that it may be autism. We took him to his pediatrician and voiced our concerns. She assured us that everything was normal, that some children just start talking later than others. So we left the doctor’s office with a spring in our step assured that Tyler was ok and everything was fine.

After just a few weeks however, our concerns were back because we were still not seeing any improvement. So we took another trip to the doctor’s office for another dose of reassurance, of which she was more than willing to prescribe. So we left the office the second time not quite as content with the answer but comforted, somewhat, that Tyler was going to be fine.

Again, it was not long until we knew that there was something very wrong. Around the time that Tyler turned two years old we knew that he was autistic. But why did the doctor’s refuse to see this? Just the mention of the word autism was like showing a crucifix to a vampire! She did not want to hear it. All she could do was reassure us that Tyler was completely normal; he was just like anybody else.

We stopped taking Tyler to that pediatrician and began treating him, through the help of other doctors and friends, for autism. It took two years for the doctors to confirm what Jennifer and I had already known. Tyler was diagnosed with PDD, Pervasive Developmental Delay, a form of autism.

What is the cause of autism? We could fill hundreds of blogs, and no doubt they have, discussing the causes of autism. Some say that it is purely genetic, that autistic children were simply born with it, nothing more. Some say that vaccines are 100% at fault, and a person’s genetic makeup plays no role in it at all. Our oldest son got all the vaccines that Tyler did, but he is perfectly healthy. So vaccines cannot be 100% at fault. Genetics cannot be 100% at fault either. I heard one doctor that said it best, “it is not possible to have a genetic epidemic”, and certainly we have an epidemic of autism in our country today.

I believe that the problem is a combination of both genetics and vaccines. Time will not let us go into a discussion of why vaccines are bad, I’m sure there are plenty of other blogs to read on this subject, but I know from my own research that they are. How could Wesley be healthy and Tyler be autistic when they had the same shots? Wesley’s body was obviously stronger and more able to deal with the toxins, and other dangers, that Tyler’s body could not handle.

The title of this blog is Spiritual Autism. So what is the comparison how does the physical compare with the spiritual? A few months ago I began thinking about Tyler’s condition, how it affects him, and my relationship with him as his father. I began to compare that to our spiritual lives, when as children of God we have sin in our lives, how it affects us and our relationship with our heavenly Father. As children of God we know that we have a constant pull to sin from within (Romans 7) that is in our “genes”. We know that when we sin, when we “inject” sin into our lives, that we lose fellowship with our heavenly Father, we become spiritually autistic. Over the next update or two we will look at similarities between Tyler’s condition, and the condition of the child of God that has allowed sin into their lives, and see the dangers of becoming Spiritually Autistic.